Appeals court rejects claims in Houston carjacking case

MICHAEL GRACZYK

Published
6:00 pm CST, Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Associated Press Writer

A federal appellate court has rejected an appeal from an inmate condemned in a notorious Houston carjacking case for shooting a young woman in the head as she waited at a stop light, pulling her from her car and dumping her in the street as he drove away and ran over her.

Lionell Rodriguez had asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehearing before the full court after a three-judge panel refused to let him appeal his conviction because of what he argued was poor legal help during the punishment phase of his 1994 trial.

The decision means Rodriguez likely will receive an execution date for early next year, Roe Wilson, who handles death penalty appeals for the Harris County district attorney's office, said Thursday.

The appeals court agreed in its ruling Wednesday with a federal judge who rejected claims from Rodriguez that questioned admission of his jail disciplinary records at his trial, a statement from a cousin who implicated him in the slaying and the selection of one of the jurors at his trial.

The slaying of Tracy Gee, 22, was highly publicized in Houston and its random nature prompted worries about the safety of residents.

Rodriguez, 35, has been tried twice for killing Gee, who was gunned down Sept. 5, 1990, only a few blocks from her home as she was returning from work

Rodriguez was 19 at the time of the shooting and had been out on parole only three weeks after serving three months of a seven-year sentence for burglary. He also had a long criminal history, including revocation of juvenile probation, and witnesses testified about violent behavior while he was being held in the Harris County Jail before his first trial.

Police initially thought the woman was the victim of a hit-and-run accident but the investigation changed when doctors found a .30-caliber M-1 carbine bullet wound in her temple.

Rodriguez drove around for about two hours in Gee's car, which was splattered with bone fragments and brain matter, and was sitting in the car and in a pool of her blood when he was arrested near his home in Rosenberg in Fort Bend County.

At his trial, evidence included his confession in which he said he wanted her car because the one he riding in was almost out of gas.

His cousin, James Gonzales, implicated Rodriguez in the shooting and is serving a 40-year sentence for aggravated robbery.

Rodriguez was convicted first in 1991 and sentenced to die but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals two years later threw out the conviction and ordered a new trial because a list of potential jurors for his trial had been shuffled twice when the law said it could be shuffled only once.

He was retried in 1994, convicted again and sentenced to death again.

Rodriguez said from death row after his first trial that he had found Christianity in prison and was sorry about the shooting.